Badass Ladies You Should Know is an interview series in which talented women say to hell with false modesty. Features are interspersed with links to amazing ladies highlighted elsewhere.
Hosted by Kate Hart, author of After the Fall (January 2017 from Farrar, Straus & Giroux) and reformed “girl who’s not like other girls.” Because screw that. Girls are awesome.
Canadian-American Astrophysicist Professor Vicky Kaspi has been awarded Companion of the Order of Canada (the highest ranking of the award).
In 2016 only 3 Companion of the Order of Canada awards were given out (compared to dozens more Officers of the Order of Canada), so this is a big deal that she won.
The “Order of Canada” is “a fellowship that recognizes the outstanding merit or distinguished service of Canadians who make a major difference to Canada through lifelong contributions in every field of endeavour, as well as the efforts by non-Canadians who have made the world better by their actions.”
It’s here! My debut novel, After the Fall, has hit shelves after seven long years. And to celebrate, some dear friends have joined forces to fundraise for RAINN.
They’ll be matching donations to RAINN up to $4000, giving us a chance to raise at least $8000 for sexual assault survivors!
Just go to fundraise.rainn.org/afterthefalland make your contribution, and at the end of the day, the ladies listed on that page will double the total (up to the $4K limit). If you can’t contribute but still want to help, signal boost the fundraiser using the hashtag #afterthefall and share some of your favorite feminist reads. Every bit helps.
Thank you so much for your support, today and over the past half a decade or so, and for helping to fight against rape culture and sexual assault.
- Kate
Hi Badass Lady fans! Instead of a profile this week, I’m hoping you’ll join me in raising funds for RAINN in honor of my debut novel’s release. Thanks for everything!
friendly reminder that ina garten, the host of barefoot contessa on food network, majored in economics and was in charge of writing the budget for the US’s nuclear program and drafted policy memos regarding construction of nuclear centrifuges under US presidents ford and carter
also she fund raises for planned parenthood and supports gay marriage so yeah this woman can budget, plan nuclear policy, and cook a mean meal and now u know
If you can’t make the nuclear centrifuge yourself, store bought is fine.
Twelve-year-old Autumn Peltier didn’t get to deliver her speech in the presence of the prime minister, but she’s still spreading her message that the Canadian government needs to protect the country’s water.
Peltier, who is from Wikwemikong First Nation in Ontario, had been asked to be part of the introduction of Justin Trudeau at the Assembly of First Nations’ annual meeting on Tuesday. She had prepared three handwritten pages of a speech.
“I’m not here to just have fun to travel and anything, because I have a really serious statement and I really want it to be heard,” she told The Huffington Post Canada in an interview.
But when Peltier got on stage at the Hilton Lac-Leamy hotel in Gatineau, Que., she ended up with only a few moments of the prime minister’s attention, as she gifted him a “water bundle” of a copper bowl containing a red cloth, some tobacco, and a copper cup.
“I said ‘I’m very unhappy with the choices you’ve made’,” Peltier recalled. “And he said ‘I understand that.’ And then I started crying and then after that, all I got to say is, ‘The pipelines.’”
She said Trudeau replied to her, “I will protect the water.”
Peltier explained on Wednesday, “I was upset with him because he broke promises with the First Nations people when he accepted the pipelines.”
Trudeau had pledged a new relationship with indigenous communities and their concerns. Last month, his Liberal government approved two major oil pipeline expansions, including the controversial Trans Mountain line through a Vancouver suburb.
Many indigenous people opposed the Trans Mountain expansion because of the environmental risk from a larger number of tankers travelling in B.C. waters.
“All that water does for our lives and the thought of water being contaminated and we won’t have any clean drinking water — it makes me very sad. And it was just my chance to say it to the prime minister,” Peltier told HuffPost.
“After time, pipelines erode, they rot and break down. There have been pipelines breaking all over,” she wrote in her prepared speech.
“I should not be standing here right now worrying about my future and my children and grandchildren’s future,” she wanted to say in front of Trudeau, who is also the minister of youth.
“Mother Earth has been in existence for billions of years and it has taken us less than a century to destroy her…. We know climate change isn’t going to change tomorrow. But tomorrow is a new day and we can try to sit together and work together to discuss other ways we can save the environment.”
